Do not shout at your disks !

From Slashdot:

Computers and their strange behaviours…

Getting Real and Design

From svn:

Imagine if Information Architects and Designers worked together with Developers to create a working section or feature of a site. Wireframes can be part of that process but don’t have to be presented. The more real it is the better feedback you’ll receive.

Exactly on spot ! Only problem is, IA aren’t abundant in small companies, and designers end up doing that job, what (usually) leads to poorly thought features and interactions. Design is a visual process, and it’s too easy to look at that shiny polished look that’s appearing like magic on Photoshop and forget that what’s on screen is just a still, a frame from a bigger movie where the main character is played by the user.

Or, Developers take a shot at it, and being good faithful geeks they suffer from the reverse problem: everything is interaction, and every possible solution must be taken in to account, regardless of the look and interaction demanded from the user. We (I fit comfortably on the geek squad) end up making forms that present error messages on the wrong places, with non sequential fields and sometimes even loosing all the information the user just entered.

All this leads to frustration, with one (or more) of the following results:

• the developer that likes to have a polished look and feel, sees a nicely designed page that breaks conventions and is not easily expandable
• the designer sees his/her hard work completely trashed by a dumb geek that can’t see the difference from Helvetica to Georgia
• the user sees a waste of his/her time

Of course, we can work hard and try to make something good, designers, developers, and information architects (even the ones that perform this role in good will). But sometimes it’s hard…

Deolinda - Clandestino

Maria João - Rosa

ROSA (Pixinguinha / Octávio de Souza)

Tu és, divina e graciosa
Estátua majestosa do amor
Por Deus esculturada
E formada com ardor
Da alma da mais linda flor
De mais ativo olor
Que na vida é preferida pelo beija-flor
Se Deus me fora tão clemente
Aqui nesse ambiente de luz
Formada numa tela deslumbrante e bela
Teu coração junto ao meu lanceado
Pregado e crucificado sobre a rósea cruz
Do arfante peito seu
Tu és a forma ideal
Estátua magistral oh alma perenal
Do meu primeiro amor, sublime amor
Tu és de Deus a soberana flor
Tu és de Deus a criação
Que em todo coração sepultas um amor
O riso, a fé, a dor
Em sândalos olentes cheios de sabor
Em vozes tão dolentes como um sonho em flor
És láctea estrela
És mãe da realeza
És tudo enfim que tem de belo
Em todo resplendor da santa natureza
Perdão, se ouso confessar-te
Eu hei de sempre amar-te
Oh flor meu peito não resiste
Oh meu Deus o quanto é triste
A incerteza de um amor
Que mais me faz penar em esperar
Em conduzir-te um dia
Ao pé do altar
Jurar, aos pés do onipotente
Em preces comoventes de dor
E receber a unção da tua gratidão
Depois de remir meus desejos
Em nuvens de beijos
Hei de envolver-te até meu padecer
De todo fenecer

Gravity Emerges…From Neutrinos?

From Cosmic Variance a note about a paper from Bob McElrath that appeared on arXiv. The paper is too technical for me, but a new perspective on something that puzzles scientists for so long is always a good thing…

Music on the Subway

Some weeks ago while walking the few hundred meters that separate the subway from the train station at Sta. Apolónia I was surprised with a concert (still under assembly) on the subway station lobby. At the time I was in a hurry to catch the train and it really needed to be the 19h06 one, so I was unable to see the show, and spend some time listening to music. Today I was surprised with another concert, this one had already started, in the form of a woodwind quartet. 

Unfortunately, once again I was in a hurry, so I was only there for a few minutes, but it a very nice initiative from the Metropolitano de Lisboa.

Almost every day I find a new good reason to work in this city…

Making Modular Layout Systems

From 24 ways:

For all of the advantages the web has with distribution of content, I’ve always lamented the handiness of the WYSIWYG design tools from the print publishing world. When I set out to redesign my personal website, I wanted to have some of the same abilities that those tools have, laying out pages how I saw fit, and that meant a flexible system for dealing with imagery.

Building on some of the CSS that Eric Meyer employed a few years back on the A List Apart design, I created a set of classes to use together to achieve the variety I was after. Employing multiple classes isn’t a new technique, but most examples aren’t coming at this from strictly editorial and visual perspectives; I wanted to have options to vary my layouts depending on content.

Nice article from Jason Santa Maria

I Met the Walrus

From svn:

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview. This was in the midst of Lennon’s ‘bed-in’ phase, during which John and Yoko were staying in hotel beds in an effort to promote peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it.

Nina Simone - Ain’t Got No…I’ve Got Life

Maria João & Mário Laginha - Chocolate

I’ve been listening to Maria João & Mário Laginha for some years now, and since the first music I thought that the combination of unusual voice and accent with the mastering of the keys produced a really beautiful music (not that I’m an expert on the field). Some weeks ago, after seeing Lisa at the CCB I saw the ads for Chocolate, and decided that this would be occasion to finally see this great musicians live. 

The concert was GREAT! Maria João was glowing on her yellow and brown dress, and Mário was so graceful with the piano that it was almost as nice to see, as it was to hear him. But they were not alone, with them there was Alexandre Frasão that I already knew from other records, and that performed a great drumming show, and Bernardo Moreira that  with the ever so cool posture quietly filled the music with gentle strings. I was already familiar with Frasão’s work with João & Mário, and noticed his touch in Bernardo Sassetti’s “Nocturno”, but I don’t think I ever listened to Bernardo Moreira, even knowing from other sources that his family has a great presence in the portuguese jazz. Finally, Julian Argüelles was a complete stranger to me, but after that concert, I think I’m going to pay more attention to his music.

The concerted lasted for almost two hours, including an great encore that by itself was another concert, and the musicians were unstoppable at filling the Grande Auditório with great music. There was no “4 minute mtv tune” routine, and at some point I even thought that Maria João would simply collapse after so much vocals. Once again, it was really a great evening, and never before I clapped so much and with so much pleasure. 

Really, they all rock… errr… jazz !